I’m accustomed to being an organizer and a planner. It’s a role I enjoy across many of my groups of friends, mainly because I tend to be reasonably assertive and also don’t tend to take it personally if plans fall through. This is also the case for my group of nerd friends, who congregate once a year at PAX in Melbourne. We don’t necessarily plan out every gathering within the group, but we tend to steer things each day and let folks come and go as it suits them. This year, I had been a bit apprehensive about going to PAX at all, as I wasn’t sure how we would cope with going on holiday so soon after the miscarriage. We hadn’t committed to too much time at PAX itself and decided to see how we went; we’d feel worse bailing on pre-made plans, after all.

Overall, I’m glad we went. At first I found it very difficult to deal with open-ended or open-invitation events; I needed predictability as my brain got used to the idea of being on holiday. But because of the wonderful people we usually see and spend time with at PAX, this eased up and we ended up going to PAX proper for all 3 days. I was still a bit reticent about organising group events, but I did become more comfortable with last-minute, spontaneous events by the second day. In some ways, I was surprised at how much I was enjoying myself. The multiple sources of distraction ended up being far more helpful than overwhelming

That’s not to say it wasn’t hard, though. I found myself hitting my decision-making limits far more quickly than usual, and I had basically no tolerance for stupidity or incompetence. When things went wrong, We both fell apart more quickly than normal. With this year being one of the more poorly run PAX events I’ve been to, Blake and I missed out on more events or activities (panels, booth stuff, etc) than usual, and the disappointment of missing out but us much harder. This was rough, especially for Blake; he’s fine when he has things to do that he enjoys, but looking forward to several things only to have none of them pan out took its toll.

We needed a couple of time-outs from PAX to just sit together and comfort one another. It was hard to pull ourselves together to try to do something else, lest that also fall through and result in even more disappointment. Emotional first aid was administered as necessary, and to both our credits, we didn’t stay down long and opened ourselves up to trying again. We came up with safer options with our understanding friends and these 100% paid off.

Good food, good coffee, and tram rides that Pokémon Go registered as walking helped. Melbourne is excellent and reliable like that.

I felt a bit weird posting selfies of us smiling at the camera, but in the end felt that doing so reminded me that we could still have fun. We could still smile. We don’t have to be sad all the time, and there is nothing wrong with finding a little bit of fun and laughter when it comes along.